


moonboy and his rabbit

by c_onstellations



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, M/M, Some Alcohol Use, alternate universe - children's show hosts, attempted rivals to lovers, dream's 00 line are children's show hosts, some cameos here and there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21648163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/c_onstellations/pseuds/c_onstellations
Summary: “Is this why sometimes you hum the tune of ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ when you’re in the kitchen?” Renjun wonders.“Yes,” Jaemin blinks. He’s trying to make a right turn at this intersection but the stream of cars pour out endlessly and at the rate they’re going, his car might not make it. “Because it’s my job to teach kids where several of their body parts are.”
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun & Lee Donghyuck | Haechan, Huang Ren Jun/Na Jaemin, Lee Jeno & Na Jaemin
Comments: 14
Kudos: 265
Collections: ’00 FIC FEST: ROUND ONE





	moonboy and his rabbit

**Author's Note:**

> #0055: Renjun and Jaemin are hosts of rival children's TV programs but have never met: they dislike each other by default. Renjun is also the cute stranger that just moved into the apartment beside Jaemin’s. He knows who Renjun is, but Renjun doesn’t know who he is - Jaemin doesn’t know if it’s a pro or a con he wears a hot pink animal costume at work every day.
> 
> a disclaimer: I have no idea how children's shows/broadcast studios are run, so everything here is purely speculation! and do take a look at renjun's song recs (+ lyrics) for some extra atmosphere!

Jaemin’s memory of the first time he meets Renjun unfolds in the beverage aisle on a drowsy Sunday afternoon.

For the record, Jaemin doesn’t know what he’s doing. Sure, he’s a college graduate now, he does his taxes on time and has a somewhat full-time job, but nothing in his life has ever prepared him for the ordeal that is grocery shopping.

Usually his mum does it for him – once a week, Mrs Na bursts into Jaemin’s tiny apartment with armfuls of reusable bags, more than her slight frame should be able to handle. For months, Jaemin has never had to face an empty fridge because his mother stocks up his kitchen with meal preparations and _banchan_ in excess, more than he could ever need. But as all other semi-retired ladies of her age do, she’d gone away to Europe with her friends for a whole month, and there’s only a certain number of meal preps that she could get in without risking food poisoning, leaving her poor adult son to fend for himself.

It’s not that Jaemin doesn’t know how to buy things. He gets his coffee from his favourite little haunt down the street from his apartment. He flirts with the cafeteria aunties for more _galbi-jjim_ than should be allowed into his tray. Heck, he orders his clothes online. He definitely knows how to buy things.

The problem is everything else. Jaemin doesn’t know how to choose. There are entire shelves dedicated to three-in-one instant mix coffee that all advertise that they are Very Delicious and Very Convenient, but the variety is, quite frankly, Very Disorienting. In his defence, he hadn’t had to make these decisions as long as his mother continued to be his personal shopper, but introspectively, it was getting quite embarrassing. Na Jaemin, a full-grown adult who could barely do his own grocery shopping.

He doesn’t recall which brand he usually has at home. He’s furiously glaring down the shelves when Yang Yang finds him.

“Why are you here! It’s been so long!” Jaemin’s basket lands on the floor with a clatter as he pulls his long-lost comrade into an embrace. They had gone to college together, but since both of them were from out of town, it was difficult to even be in the same place at the same time after graduating and going home.

“My cousin moved here recently, I’m just stopping by to help him out,” Yang Yang explains. “Give me a second, I’ll go get him.” He ducks into the frozen meats section and drags another boy over to where Jaemin is standing, speaking in rapid-fire Chinese.

Cue Renjun’s entrance. “Hello, I’m Renjun,” the boy smiles at him. He’s a little too dressed up for a grocery run in this part of town, a sure indicator of someone who’d just recently moved and had yet to acclimatise to the community. Nonetheless, Jaemin’s glad that he managed to pull _himself_ together to look presentable today.

 _He’s cute_ , Jaemin thinks, _and oddly familiar._ They shake hands. “I’m Jaemin,” he grins back. _But where?_

The purpose of the grocery run had taken a turn within the last few minutes of their meeting. Now, Yang Yang was doing the shopping for two other people who were not himself. To be fair, he had always been kind of a genius at this, having been in charge of the groceries in their shared college dorm. They talk; Yang Yang eagerly loading the shopping baskets while Renjun and Jaemin awkwardly held onto each of theirs, bent elbows bumping into each other as they trailed uselessly behind him.

Renjun is quiet, Jaemin notes, but he chalks it up to the fact that it _would be_ difficult to join in a conversation between two good friends. So he pulls him in.

He learns about Renjun: Renjun is Chinese, but like Yang Yang, was raised learning a variety of languages. They were the same age too, but he had graduated with a degree in Early Childhood Education.

He offers to send them home. Yang Yang did do his shopping for him, after all, it would be good to return the favour. Renjun pulls out his phone to read his address, embarrassed. Jaemin thought it was _almost_ endearing how he’d hadn’t managed to commit his address to memory yet –

Oh? That was his address too.

So yes, Jaemin meets his next door neighbour Renjun, in aisle 4 of the grocery store, out of pure unadulterated coincidence.

Jaemin considers himself to be a pretty optimistic guy. But it’s hard, sometimes, to not question your entire existence when you’re in a hot pink bunny costume at 5AM in the morning. Sweating his ass off in a fake park studio set up for several mornings in a row, in fact.

“Cut! Setup for the next scene, please,” the director yells.

Jeno removes his luminous green bunny head. Now that Jaemin can actually see his features, he realises that the other boy was throwing him a look of concern. “You okay there? You haven’t moved in a couple of minutes.”

“This isn’t what I thought my minor in theatre would lead to,” Jaemin says, “but it’s fine.”

“Let’s take five,” Doyoung, their production manager, comes over to yank Jaemin’s costume head off.

Jaemin winces, the full glare of the studio lights flooding his vision. “Man, why is our call time so early when the kids can’t even start work at this time?”

“Doyoung hyung lost a bet with Taeyong hyung,” Jeno whispers, “so they had to swap call times. They have our usual slot for a whole month.”

“My beloved dongsaeng is gossiping about me.”

“Your beloved dongsaengs,” Jaemin hisses, drawing the s-sound out for as long as he can, “have to prance around a fake park in fluorescent pink and green bunny costumes at five in the morning because of you.”

Doyoung visibly deflates. “My luck was just incredibly bad that one time, alright!”

“Yeah, but Art Attack doesn’t use kid actors as much as we do! There’s a reason why our original time slots were the way they were! Because, you know, the law!”

“Well, that’s what I thought too! But the management approved the swap! What can I do!” Doyoung exclaims, massaging his temples in disdain.

“I can’t believe that they’re doing this to us,” Jeno mutters, kneading his hands into his costume head. Jaemin watches puffs of fake fur spring up and come loose, floating through the air in the wake of his fingers, like a demented, synthetic dandelion, or something. “Ugh, we gotta get the numbers up again if we want to gain some favour in here.”

He scoffs. If only working harder directly translated to better ratings – he would be Na Jaemin, the most animated bunny-human in the world. But this was the reality: he’s just Na Jaemin, the dude in a hot pink bunny costume. And now he has to somehow leverage on that and figure out how to be better than a couple of craft nerds before he becomes (gasp!) some _forgotten_ dude in a hot pink bunny costume.

Their running rivalry with Art Attack begins something like this, sprouts from their first meeting two years ago –

Jeno slams the door shut. The resultant loud bang trembles throughout their shared dressing room, cutting through the silence. They were only college students back then, only meant to cover Johnny and Jaehyun from time to time. (They weren’t the main hosts until both their hyungs had left for the new English program.)

Submission week had been a difficult period for the both of them, but even more brutal for Jeno because his hard drive had randomly decided to stall and – _poof!_ – his assignments had disappeared without a trace. (Jeno bitterly swears on the cloud now, because his life had at some point – _this_ point, particularly – depended on it.) Their friendship had spanned the course of several years and rarely had Jaemin ever seen his best friend get angry. Jaemin’s just glad that Jeno’s anger isn’t directed at him, because his nerves are frazzled and he’s far too afraid to utter a word.

Work is a spectacularly terrible ordeal. From the get-go, the boys had known that it was going to be a long day, something about having to “promote their new sister show” and having to work with the new hosts.

There were two of them, both slightly shorter than Jaemin and Jeno themselves. To differentiate them, Jaemin had just remembered one of them as Blonde, and the other, Hat (no prizes for guessing why). The new hosts were okay, having even offered to get them all coffee upon learning how tired their colleagues were, but to be fair – everything had gone downhill from there.

The coffee order arrives on set, and Jaemin remembers the next sequence of events with astounding clarity, as if his fog of fatigue had lifted, briefly, for that passing moment, before rapidly clamping back down again. The events had haunted him for a while: Hat holds onto his frappe, walks over to place it into Jeno’s hands, but not before his foot gets caught in a running wire –

Then the entire frappe goes _splat_ into Jeno’s costume, whipped cream and all.

So that happened. Jaemin’s still wordlessly glancing at the physical manifestation of exhaustion when Doyoung bursts in.

“Hyuuung, I am on the brink of passing out at any moment.”

“I’ve sent the suit back to costumes, they should be able to clean it up in an hour,” Doyoung’s smiling, but the corners of his mouth don’t quite reach his eyes and Jaemin could sense the undercurrent of stress that he was fighting down. “But they’ve sent the Art Attack hosts to shoot their scenes first, so I think it’ll be a little more time before you can resume filming.”

“Why did that have to happen? I didn’t do anything to deserve this,” Jeno’s voice was muffled from the crook of his elbow where he had planted his face on. “I have one more deadline to meet and want to go home.”

Jaemin sees Renjun a few more times after their first meeting in the supermarket. Often, but not often enough, since they lived beside each other. He begrudgingly comes to terms with the fact that it’s not his fault that he starts work at ass o’clock and Renjun doesn’t.

The next big development comes with a storm. It’s a grey evening, the rain pelting down in angry diagonal sheets and everywhere Jaemin turns is wet and dark. He’s headed back to his apartment after taking out his trash when he bumps into his neighbour. He must’ve seen him too, because Renjun sends him a small wave as he approaches him.

“Finished with work?”

“Yeah, finally. I’m exhausted.” Renjun sighs.

There’s a furrow so prominently embedded in his brow that Jaemin aches to smooth over. Except he doesn’t, because he realises that they’ve only met a handful of times and it would be exceedingly weird. But Jaemin wants to know what is bothering him, so he asks.

“My colleagues go so hard on competition, it’s getting difficult to manage and meet expectations.” Renjun explains, still trying to shake out his umbrella, and the water droplets go _plop, plop, plop_ on the floor.

Jaemin hums, “It’s like that for me too. My colleagues keep going off about ratings and it really makes work… not as fun anymore.”

Renjun’s eyes widen. “You work at the broadcasting studio too?”

Jaemin chuckles. Renjun was a newcomer to their area, and it really showed. “Nearly everyone who lives in this building works at the broadcast studio.”

Renjun doesn’t reply, just nods, and lets the silence envelope them as they wait for the elevator, while scrolling through a takeout menu on his phone. Jaemin doesn’t mean to pry, but he’s just _that little bit_ taller than Renjun, and his phone was just _conveniently_ in his line of sight. His brain barely has the time to finish processing his thoughts when the question spills forth from his mouth.

“Hey, do you want to come to mine for dinner?”

Jaemin stares down at the marbled flooring in belated horror. What was he thinking? There were many reasons compelling Renjun to reject his offer: he must be tired, he’d probably had the worst day at work and now he has to deal with _more_ socialisation from the one neighbour who never left his house at a decent hour. He mentally smacks himself in the face.

“I mean, since you’re trying to order takeout, I assumed that you don’t have dinner waiting for you, and it’s raining, delivery timings are going to take longer and hey I can easily cover your portion because I have a lot of food, wow, I have _so much_ food at home, but it’s fine if you don’t want to, really, I mean –“

Renjun shifts his umbrella to another side to put a dry hand on Jaemin’s arm. His visage is smiling, the brightest thing to have graced his presence today, “I’d love to.”

Renjun comes over for dinner again after the first time. Several other times after that, even if it doesn’t rain. “It’s convenient,” Renjun grins, “where else can I get _banchan_ as good as this?”

Doyoung has been nervously staring at the both of them throughout the shoot. With no break in between.

“Hyung,” Jeno comes unhinged and finally asks. “Do you want to say something?”

If Doyoung is at a loss for words then the news must be… something. Jaemin watches their manager gingerly set down the smoothie he’d been drinking and thumb through a monstrous stack of memos.

“Here,” he draws one page out and slides it into Jaemin’s hands. “The production team’s been looking at the ratings. Analysing our… competitor, if you will.” Jeno’s not wearing his glasses so he can’t read properly, his squinted eyes darting across the page haphazardly.

“And… we believe that one of the biggest reasons why Art Attack gets higher ratings is because they do two languages while we only do one.”

Jeno exhales, “You’re telling me these craft nerds speak in two languages on their show?” His knuckles were white from how hard he was gripping the paper. “What do we have to do now to one-up that? Let’s get Yang Yang onto our show. He knows Chinese _and_ German.”

“Is this for real?” Jaemin glances incredulously at Doyoung.

Doyoung looks up. “We think it would be good for both of you to learn some Chinese. Level the playing field a little, y’know? The studio can arrange for lessons, since we tend to wrap up earlier anyway –” His voice is lilting, suspended in a fake-perky tone, the one that he uses when he’s trying to convince other people about something. It’s not working.

“So I have to come into work at 5AM in the morning, work, and then I still have to study?” Jeno asks, slowly feeling each word in his mouth before enunciating them. “That’s worse than high school.”

Doyoung’s shoulders fall into a slump.

“The original suggestion was to swap both of you out. I had to fight to keep both of you on the show, y’know? I’m sorry it came to this.”

“Hyung, our show isn’t even doing badly. Why are the higher-ups so hung up on this?”

Jaemin spares a glance to look at his best friend. Watches him bury his head in his hands again. Wants to pretend that the last conversation never took place.

They’re having dinner together again today. Jaemin places the crockpot onto the table. “How’s your day?”

“Same old, same old,” Renjun groans, “the producers are always saying that I can do _this_ , do _that_ , but honestly, I’m over it... I mean, I am only human, I’m always doing my best and all but this is all I’m capable of doing.”

Jaemin is momentarily taken back to his last conversation with Doyoung and falls dead quiet. He’s still reeling from the shock – it’s _quite something_ to learn that you almost got fired at work. At a job that he thought he did pretty good at, anyway.

Renjun notices the shift in mood, and judging from Jaemin’s response, he didn’t want to prod further. Wordlessly, he lifts the lid to reveal bubbling tofu stew and lets out a low whistle at the sight.

“Let’s not talk about stressful things anymore,” he picks up a piece of tofu with his chopsticks and drops it into Jaemin’s bowl. “Dinner time with you is a happy affair.”

They learn more about each other over the next few weeks.

Some nights, Jaemin can hear Renjun putting his records on from across their shared wall. The lyrics must be Chinese, because Jaemin barely comprehends them. The turntable crackles to life and somehow, even for melodies as foreign as this, they are so familiar and yes, this must be Renjun’s semblance of home.

He knows Renjun misses home – Renjun admits this himself, over dinner. He misses the big extended family hotpots, the dumplings that his grandmother stuffs him with, and his mother’s handmade noodles and broth. It’s weird, really, because he’s moved so many times in his life: within China, from China to Korea, and somehow the hardest move was the one where he was headed to here.

The anecdote to homesickness is elusive. Jaemin knows his culinary skills can never match up to the matriarchs of the Huang family, but he’s glad nonetheless. To be someone Renjun can come back to after a long day - that was the least he could do, right?

His Chinese tutor had, at Jaemin’s humble insistence, taught him the word for “handsome”.

“I’m handsome,” Jaemin would grin at the balding, sixty-something year old man.

Jeno rolls his eyes in response, “but you have no boyfriend.” His tutor had taught him that too, because Jeno’s sole purpose in life is to antagonise Jaemin and his ego.

“Neither do you,” Jaemin quips back.

The Chinese lessons aren’t bad, he decides. Sure, he wishes that the circumstances could be drastically different, but for something that had previously been presented as a dire ultimatum, Jaemin thinks that learning a new language had the propensity to be a whale of a time.

And besides, it would be nice to surprise Renjun right? He would be so pleased.

Jaemin’s standing in front of his open refrigerator, about to start on dinner when Renjun appears at his doorstep, brandishing a ladle, as if this was a normal thing to be doing.

“Hey, some of my friends and I are having hotpot tonight and I just wanted to ask if you’d like to join?”

Well, that would explain some of it.

“Would it be weird?” Jaemin turns from his fridge to look at the boy at the door.

“Think about our first dinner date,” Renjun points the ladle straight at him. Jaemin freezes, breath momentarily caught in his throat. _Dinner date_. He desperately pushes down the feeling of his insides stirring at the way Renjun had said _dinner date_ without batting an eye.

Ah, he must be one of _those people_ who label solo hangouts as _dates_.

Renjun laughs, “I don’t think it’ll be a problem. Just think of it as me trying to pay you back.” Renjun reaches into his unit and drags Jaemin out into his own.

Jaemin’s first glimpse of Renjun’s home sees the famed record player sitting in the far corner of the living room. In front of it lay a small but formidable stack of vinyls. “These are majority Teresa Teng,” Renjun’s voice is fond as he flips through them. “This one is my favourite,” he stops at one, “I play this one the most, it’s called ‘The Moon Represents My Heart’.”Jaemin makes a mental note of the name and tucks it into his memory.

Now marks the first time he’s standing in the middle of Renjun’s living room but everything feels… alright. Renjun just has that effect on people – they had been strangers once, too.

“How many other people are coming over?” Jaemin inquires, while examining the frames on the console as inconspicuously as possible.

“About three? Yang Yang would’ve come but he has some conference tomorrow so he can’t.” Renjun pauses. Walks over to swat Jaemin’s prying eyes away. “And stop trying to look at my baby photos, you ain’t slick.”

Over the next fifteen minutes, people begin to pile into the apartment. They introduce themselves: Kun. Sicheng. Lucas.

“Hello, I’m Jaemin, and I live next door,” he beams, taking Lucas’ hand in a handshake.

“I know, Renjun’s told me so much about you.”

Renjun’s dining table is small, and the table is densely packed with ingredients and utensils. The chilli oil in the hotpot glimmers in its centre position like a crowning jewel. There isn’t a lot of leg space under the table, either, and Jaemin feels Renjun’s knees knocking into his shin from time to time.

Unsurprisingly, Renjun’s friends speak to each other in Chinese. Jaemin’s a fresh beginner, so he doesn’t understand much, neither does he say much, just watches Renjun connect with his dinner company as he nurses his overflowing bowl, because Renjun keeps making a point to fill it with whatever’s done cooking in the communal pot.

Until Sicheng glances at him, and says something that Jaemin swears sounds like “Is he your boyfriend?” Jaemin stills, halting his chopsticks midway through picking up a slice of fishcake, wondering if his ears had deceived him. He’s still in the midst of figuring it out, when Kun nods his head fervently and enthuses, “He’s handsome, you know?” The same few keywords rise above the cacophony of animated conversation, shuttling back and forth. Renjun shifts in his seat.

Blinks once.

Blinks twice, and shrugs.

And Jaemin’s sure this time, when his neighbour turns to him and says it. “He’s handsome, but he isn’t my boyfriend.”

Jaemin wants to scream, but he realises that he’s not supposed to be understanding anything. So he just smiles, says that he’s heading into the kitchen to get another serving of rice, and leaves the table.

Midnight really shouldn’t feel this late when Jaemin’s just a twenty-something year old trying to kick off his career, but to be fair, his career demanded that he pulled into the studio at 4AM, so, touché. He’s tired, tired out of his own mind because Jaemin still has to be a bunny on this children’s show, because his Chinese lessons are piling up and all he’s thinking about when learning new grammar is whether he’d hallucinated the dinner conversation or not, because Doyoung keeps harping on the ratings that Jaemin no longer knows how else to raise, because everything is happening at once and still, still Jaemin can’t drift off to sleep.

Maybe he’s been thinking about the last dinner. Can’t stop thinking about the last dinner. That’s Jaemin’s hamartia: chronic overthinking.

He doesn’t quite know why he reacted the way he did back then. But the words keep glowing red-hot in his mind. Handsome. Boyfriend. Renjun thinks he’s handsome? What did the boyfriend question imply? Does he _want_ him to be his boyfriend?

_Boyfriend. Boyfriend. Boyfriend._

Insomnia is an enigma. Huang Renjun is an enigma.

(“The food is running out quickly nowadays,” his mum had commented once, inspecting his barren kitchen in confusion. “You rarely finish the _banchan_ so quickly.”

“Sometimes a friend comes over,” Jaemin doesn’t look up, eyes trained on the next day’s production notes. “He loves your radish kimchi. He always says it’s great.”

“I see. He must come over a lot.”

Jaemin hums in agreement. Sometime next week, he will check his fridge and be bowled over by the twofold increase of filled containers inside, with the additional glass tub of radish kimchi twinkling back at him.)

So what if he doesn’t talk about work anymore because Renjun told him not to. So what if he thinks about making sure that Renjun comes home to him every night for dinner.

His feet bring him to the rooftop. The lock is swung open. Someone must’ve beat him there.

It’s him.

Jaemin sees Renjun, back flush against the parapet, his sweatpant-clad legs stretched in front of him, humming to some song – must be Teresa Teng, Jaemin supposes, he’s been listening to her a lot lately too – playing through his earbuds. When Renjun listens to her he thinks of home, and when Jaemin listens to her he thinks of Renjun. It’s one of those strange dusky nights, the moon pale and waning, Jaemin thinks, the air swaddling him like a thick blanket and he doesn’t understand how Renjun’s barely breaking a sweat in his fully covered ensemble.

Renjun doesn’t know he’s here. He’s not looking at him – not looking at anything in particular, really – eyes closed, fingers drumming softly against the dingy ledge. But Jaemin's looking at him, and he doesn’t move, for fear of breaking up the peace, for fear of losing the moment, for fear of never getting it back again.

A moment of clarity.

And then he thinks he understands.

Jaemin lives in this weird, tangled web of people around him who _kinda sorta should_ know each other, but not quite. It’s been like this ever since he’s moved in here: everyone heads off to the studios at some point in the day, but it doesn’t mean that they’re ready to invite each other into their homes for tea. Just because Minho from downstairs sometimes stands in for their usual sound guy, doesn’t mean that he and Jeno are best friends (…yet, at least, who knows what Jeno is capable of doing?).

Not everyone is a Renjun. Or a Jeno, or a Doyoung.

There’s just one thing though. Jaemin doesn’t introduce Jeno to Renjun, his next door neighbour. And neither does Renjun know that Jaemin is Nana, a hot pink bunny.

Jaemin doesn’t know why he even did this to himself in the first place, but just seems too oddly big of a deal to be introducing them to each other now, and at this point, _that would be really weird, right?_

It’ll be fine. Jaemin’s lived like this in the past just fine. Jeno’s Jaemin’s co-worker. Renjun’s his next door neighbour. That’s how things are, how things will stay. There’s no way that their paths would cross.

Doyoung dumps a stack of files on the dressing room table one day. The papers land on the table with a _THWACK_ and Jaemin jumps, from the sheer force of the surprise.

“Kids,” Doyoung sighs, “we’ve got a big project on our hands.”

“Program crossover?” Jeno pushes his glasses up his nose bridge as he peruses the documents. “Again?”

“With who?” Jaemin puts down his own program script, leaning over to peer at the open page.

Across the top in bold letters: NANO WORLD X ART ATTACK.

Jeno pushes the conference room door open as they head over to the pre-meeting. The room is semi-filled, with new and old faces. The first thing Jaemin’s eyes are acquainted with is the sight of Doyoung ferociously whisper-arguing about something with another staff member that he recognises as Taeyong. Jeno tugs on his elbow insistently, face pointed in the opposite direction, forcing Jaemin to tear his eyes away from whatever it was.

“The craft nerds are there,” Jeno mutters under his breath.

Jaemin frowns and squints at the placards. “Jun and Haechan. Huh, would you look at that, that sounds like my neighbour –”

“It’s Donghyuck,” Haechan scowls, “nobody calls me that. The production team gave me a new name because _apparently_ , Donghyuck is difficult for kids to pronounce.”

Jeno drags his chair out to sit behind his placard. “That makes no sense.” Jaemin sits behind his own too. _Nana._ A beat.

Looks up to the sight of his next door neighbour sitting behind the placard that says _Jun_.

“You’re Nana,” Renjun states flatly, considering this for a moment. “You’re Nana?” He repeats, incredulously.

The four of them are sitting, quite ill-fatedly, in some café, under the guise of ‘building rapport’, as quoted from Taeyong. The café is all white marble and rose gold, with bay windows lining the walls, letting daylight in. A man named Dejun takes their order, and the barista – his name tag says Hendery? – comes over to set their drinks down.

Donghyuck grabs Jaemin’s Americano wordlessly, leaving a ring of condensation behind on the table and takes a courageous gulp. “This tastes like a car tyre,” he gripes, tone dripping in judgement, face contorted in disgust.

“Then don’t drink it?” Jeno snaps.

Donghyuck sets the mug back down with a clatter. Jaemin winces. The tension is palpable, even the café staff shoot concerned glances at their table. “You’re telling me you like this?”

“Funny story actually.” _It was not a funny story, Jeno’s eyes were completely dead._ “I can’t drink anything else now because _somebody_ delayed my schedule and made me wait an entire hour for my costume to be dry cleaned.”

Jaemin watches Donghyuck’s eyes widen, first in realisation, then in fear, then in blazing in anger. The café was pretty, it was just a shame how the circumstances came to be.

The city is winding down when Jaemin drives Renjun home at the end of the day. This is Jaemin’s least favourite part of his commute – usually, he’d take the bus, today he was late and couldn’t afford the extra time – and like always, the going home traffic is snaking and slow.

“Is this why sometimes you hum the tune of ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ when you’re in the kitchen?” Renjun wonders.

“Yes,” Jaemin blinks. He’s trying to make a right turn at this intersection but the stream of cars pour out endlessly and at the rate they’re going, his car might not make it. “Because it’s my job to teach kids where several of their body parts are.”

“And I can’t believe that I was none the wiser this whole time. I was tearing my hair out every day over the person who feeds me.”

The sun is setting somewhere, dipping into where the flyover cuts across the business district and the light dyes the city yellow, falling slanted through the adjacent window. Renjun is golden now. And Jaemin wants to keep looking.

 _That makes the two of us_ , he thinks. “Technically, that would be my mother, but I’m not going to be picky about semantics right now.”

Renjun looks up from his flickering phone screen to roll his eyes at Jaemin. “God, I hate you so much sometimes.”

There was no bite in his tone. His passenger was grinning in the amber glow, and the driver just grins back in return. “Sure you do. Speaking of that, Since Jeno and Donghyuck have decided on being like that, we have a lot of work to be doing.”

“It’s fine. We can work on it. We have time.”

Jeno and Donghyuck being sworn enemies has really made this collaboration a greater headache than it should be. Jaemin knows that Jeno has a bias against Donghyuck, but he doesn’t understand _why_ Jeno acts like this, all sharp teeth and claws when Donghyuck is in sight.

“Hyuck,” Taeyong points, “You shouldn’t be standing there. Renjun and you look especially tiny next to them. The composition is kinda off.”

“Hyung, is it my fault that I look tiny next to these two furries?”

Jeno yanks his costume head off in response, through clenched teeth – “Is it _my_ fault, Haechan? That you’re tiny?”

Jaemin glances at Renjun, who clearly shares the same expression of alarm.

Renjun directs, _drags_ Donghyuck to his other side. “It’s okay, we can just rearrange our positions!”

From the corner of his eye, Jaemin spots Jeno’s jaw clench. He scrambles, gets up abruptly to forcibly put Jeno’s costume head back on. “Yeah! Let’s just sit here instead, Jeno!” Jaemin can’t see it, but he can definitely sense the venom in Jeno’s (thankfully) non-visible expression.

Jaemin feels a tug on his back pull him down and he falls into the spot next to Renjun. That’s how they end up sitting, Jeno and Donghyuck (standing, in defiance) at opposite ends, Renjun and Jaemin sandwiched in between.

The director drives a thumbs-up in the air and Jeno and Donghyuck immediately spring apart with a huff, like magnets repelling each other. Jaemin looks down and sees Renjun’s palm still pressed against his back, and the awareness registers. Through the layers of synthetic fur he feels his skin burn.

Renjun and Jaemin settle into a routine. Every weekday they head to work to put out the metaphorical fire that is their disastrous collaboration, and after knocking off they retreat into Jaemin’s kitchen for dinner and pray that they don’t accidentally set anything on actual fire from sheer fatigue.

Which is why it is out of the blue when Renjun appears at his doorstep on a Saturday evening, uncalled. Jaemin lets him in, but Renjun doesn’t come in immediately, just stands in the doorway, staring at Jaemin’s scalp for a full minute before he enters and poses the million dollar question.

“Have you dyed your hair before?”

Jaemin, somewhat befuddled, shakes his head.

Renjun reaches out to pat Jaemin’s hair. “You’d look good in pink,” he contemplates, “and you’ll match your costume at work!”

“And what should I do with this information?” Jaemin responds, peering experimentally at his reflection in the toaster oven.

“Remember during our very, very first shoot, my hair was blonde?” Renjun grins, “I did that by myself. And I can do that for you too.”

On a regular basis, Jaemin _could not_ care less about his hair colour. Maybe he was a little afraid, even, tragically reminiscing about the nightmare that was Jeno’s self-administered blonde hair. His hair had become so damaged that the hair strands broke off with the mildest touch, and he had no choice but to head to a salon to save it, ironically costing _more_ money and Jeno eventually emerged, looking like an acorn. The nickname stuck around for ages.

However, letting Renjun do his hair would entail him being his house on a Saturday night(!) and Jaemin would be an utter fool to let this opportunity pass him by. If Jaemin eventually ended up looking like an acorn, it would be on him.

And that’s the thing, whatever Renjun wants to do, Jaemin wants to do too. So of course, Jaemin says yes, and he ends up sitting cross-legged in his bathtub in a ratty old tee shirt for a couple of hours, inhaling bleach fumes. But Renjun’s beside him the entire time, in an equally ratty shirt, digging his gloved fingers into his scalp, humming the tune of what Jaemin recognises as Tian Mi Mi (he did his research, alright!) on loop, so who was he to complain?

Without a doubt it comes out good. More than good. Renjun and his golden hands, Jaemin and his pink-tinted scalp. Plus, Renjun develops a new habit of running his hands through Jaemin’s hair absentmindedly whenever they are together, so Jaemin considers it to be a massive win.

Renjun sets his chopsticks down on Jaemin’s dining table. They land on the table in two separate clatters. “Jeno’s quite cute, I think, from what I’ve gathered.”

“Where is this going?” Jaemin puts his own utensils down, albeit less decisively, feeling somewhat betrayed. _Not to be dramatic, but I let you dye my hair pink because you said it would suit me._ Why was Renjun saying this in _his_ kitchen, for goodness sake.

“I watched some of your old filming outtakes. He’s always so smiley and nice to people, like a Samoyed? The other day I was forced into a support circle of staff members who were crying over his eye smile?” Renjun hums. The image of his own best friend assails Jaemin’s own thoughts, briefly: the way his eyes crinkle, his nose scrunch and _ugh_. Why Jeno?

Renjun continues, unaware of the mini meltdown occuring inside of Jaemin, “so why, for crying out loud, is he like that with Donghyuck?”

Jaemin lets go of a breath he didn’t realise he was holding, and picks up his chopsticks again.

“Donghyuck is crazy competitive and I know how petty he can get, but their exchanges make absolutely no sense.”

Jaemin’s mind flashes to that one morning. He and Jeno had been in the company elevator when he spots Donghyuck round the corner, clearly in a rush, running for the exact elevator that both of them were standing in. And what does Jeno do? Press the buttons prompting the elevator to close. Jaemin just watches the image of Donghyuck seething behind the narrowing gap between the doors.

Or that time, in the cafeteria, where Jeno literally took the last serving of tonkatsu (which he _didn’t even like_ for goodness sake!) just to spite Donghyuck immediately behind him in the line, who had been going off all day about how _badly_ he had been craving that very dish.

“First and foremost, Jeno’s a perfectionist, and this job, if you haven’t noticed, is stressful as hell,” Jaemin turns the ladle in the pot counter-clockwise. “And they’ve got history, you were there to watch it unfold.” The soup sediment floats up, dancing for a few seconds, before settling down languidly again.

“Did he make the deadline, though?” Renjun inquires.

Jaemin shakes his head. “He turned in his assignment an hour late, so his professor slapped on a 10% penalty. And because of that he missed making the Dean’s list by 2 points, or something. Broke his streak for the first time in years.”

“Holy shit, no wonder he holds it against him.”

CHUSEOK SPECIAL SET 3: 

_JUN and NANA are sitting at the bottom of the staircase._

...

 **JUN:** Have you heard the story of Chang Er?

 **NANA:** No, please tell me more!

 **JUN:** A long, long time ago, there were ten suns in the sky.

 **NANA:** _[count from one to ten with fingers]_ That’s so many! The weather must have been hot!

 **JUN:** That’s right, Nana. It was so hot outside _[wipe sweat from brow]_ , the plants were dying and people were feeling sick everywhere. A man named Hou Yi decided that it was enough! So he shot down nine of the suns with his bow and arrow.

 **NANA:** A hero!

 **JUN:** He was given the gift of immortality _[shake elixir bottle prop]_ as a reward. Immortality means, to live forever and ever! _[pause]_ So he put the gift at home, with his wife, Chang Er. But sadly, one day, thieves came to his house.

 **NANA:** Oh no! Was Hou Yi at home?

 **JUN:** Chang Er was at home when this happened. She tried her best to protect it, of course. _[fighting stance]_ But Chang Er couldn’t fight the thieves off! Desperate, she drank it all up! _[tip bottle into mouth]_

 **NANA:** She drank it! Now will she live forever and ever?

 **JUN:** Yes, she became immortal! _[stand up]_ And not only that, she began to feel a little strange _[rub stomach]_. She began to float away! _[take one step up]_ Up! _[take another step]_ Up into the sky! _[climb remaining steps]_ Far away from home, onto the moon. _[stand on top step]_

 **NANA:** _[look up at top step]_ Forever is an awfully long time away from home.

 **JUN:** Oh, don’t worry. There’s a friend on the moon. There is a rabbit that lives there too!

 **NANA:** A rabbit? Like me?

 **JUN:** Yes, a rabbit like you.

Jaemin climbs his way up to the top step too, settling down next to Renjun. “Now they won’t be lonely anymore.”

Renjun turns to him and smiles, “that’s for sure.”

It is an exceptionally busy day, They are on set, in between changing scenes, with the four of them standing in a compact circle around Taeyong as the set design department bustles around them, moving props in and out of storage.

“So we need two of you to do an interview for the company publication later.”

“Does anyone even read that?” Donghyuck interjects. It sounds snarky, but it really isn’t. Jaemin didn’t even know of the publication’s existence up to that point.

“This one is kinda important. It’s the tenth anniversary issue, so we are looking to show how much we have grown over time.”

“So, which of us will you be choosing?”

“It would be good if we could get one of you from each show so we can present the _importance of collaboration_ and the _implementation of new production strategies_ ,” Taeyong shoots a meaningful glance at Donghyuck, “so just please, please work with us, alright?”

They make the decision the way all major decisions should be done. Rock, paper, scissors – Taeyong looks grimly at their outstretched fists.

Jaemin doesn’t know if he’d passed on his shitty luck in games to Jeno or if the last round had merely perpetuated it. The horror crawls through his veins and settles there, and he’s suddenly aware of Renjun’s iron grip on his arm, and how it’s tightening to no end.

“Okay, Mark will be holding the interview later. Go look for him, Jeno and Donghyuck. And please behave.”

Taeyong disappears immediately, responding to something Doyoung said, after giving his instruction, before protests could even be heard.

Renjun paces the narrow strip of tiles between his locker and Jaemin’s. “Oh god, do you think Mark’s cubicle will still be in one piece?”

“Mark’s office always looks like shit, so if you’re worried about that I don’t think you should,” Jaemin reaches into his locker to look for a fresh pair of socks. 

Renjun turns back on his heel to look at Jaemin, who has his upper body buried in his locker at this point. “You know what I mean! Jeno's fatal flaw is that he's a perfectionist, and Donghyuck can't be anything except number one.”

 _Where is the other matching sock?_ “You’ve waxed lyrical about how charming dear Jeno is before, like how he’s a cute friendly dog or something? And Donghyuck’s an entire superstar. They’ll be great for the publication!” Now he’s contemplating just fishing for another separate, clean sock.

Jaemin feels Renjun pinch the back of his arm in reproach. “I said he has the personality of a Samoyed. Are you jealous? That I praised him and not you? Then I’ll let you know that you remind me of a rabbit. My pink rabbit.”

Jaemin almost hits his head on the shelf and splutters, looking at the stupid smirk on Renjun’s face. “That’s not what I was looking for.”

“Well, I hope you like it because I’m not taking it back. Anyway, you’re cute when you do that.”

Something is amiss. The four of them had a scene to shoot today, but only Jaemin and Renjun were here. Donghyuck being late wasn’t that much of a shocker – but Jeno? Jeno, always punctual Jeno, he’d have at least shot Jaemin a heads up if he was running late.

Jaemin frowns at his dead notifications as he slides into the empty seat next to Renjun. “Hey, would you know anything about why our dear coworkers aren’t here yet?”

Renjun blinks at the wall clock and lets the realisation register in his brain before he grips Jaemin by the shoulders. “What if they killed each other yesterday at Mark’s?”

Jaemin is directly face to face with his neighbour-slash-colleague now. Renjun’s face is very close to his and he doesn’t know where to look. The moment was here, what if he –

“GOOD MORNING!” a boisterous voice that belonged to a certain Lee Donghyuck bursts through the room. Jaemin jumps out of his chair, as if an electric current had run through him. He looks up to see his previously missing co-hosts having materialised in the doorway.

“Sorry we’re late,” Jeno raises a takeaway cup holder in one hand. It’s the same place as that last time. “There was traffic on the way back from the coffee place that we didn’t account for.”

“You were in the same car together?” Renjun asks, dumbfounded, taking his coffee from Donghyuck.

Jaemin looks at Jeno’s coffees. There was one frappe and one iced americano.

Hm, that’s weird. Jaemin’s coffee order never changed so he wasn’t sure why Jeno didn’t just get their usual order of two iced americanos instead. Jaemin stretches an arm to pick up the frappe when Jeno slaps his hand away. “That’s mine! Yours is the americano.”

So… Jeno’s drinking a frappe on set.

“Hyuck and I wanted to get everyone coffee today so – ”

Renjun turns back to Jaemin. “Did he just call him Hyuck? What is going on?”

Donghyuck just grins. “Long story. But we’re good now.” Jeno shoots him a high-five and they fist bump.

Jaemin just raises an eyebrow in response.

If there’s anything worse than Jeno and Donghyuck being each other’s arch nemesis, it’s this, probably. Now that the four of them actually had a good working relationship with each other, they were rarely ever apart. Which means that Jaemin rarely gets Renjun alone anymore.

Donghyuck slings an arm around Jaemin. “Let’s all get dinner together tonight.”

This is how Jaemin thinks now: Dinner. _If the four of them have dinner together then Jaemin loses yet another pocket of time with Renjun._ Common sense no longer resides in Jaemin’s brain anymore, instead replaced with what Jaemin might call his Renjun-sense and nothing else.

Almost reflexively, he tries to come up with an excuse.

“Come on, it will be fun!” Jeno whines. “You spent a month convincing me that it is important to foster good relationships with the people you work with, and now when I offer you an opportunity, you refuse?”

Na Jaemin is many things, but a hypocrite is not one of them. Which is why he is sitting in the middle of a crowded Korean BBQ restaurant at 7pm with his co-workers. Donghyuck keeps overcooking the meat and Renjun yells at him for it, but the overcooked meat gets eaten anyway, courtesy of Lee Jeno, his gigantic appetite and possibly newfound low standards for food.

Renjun is making a ssam with a suspiciously tiny amount of meat. “You know what would go with this? Soju.”

The high-functioning adult in Jaemin wants to refute him because no, it would certainly not. It was a Tuesday night and they had work the next day.

But he sees the faces belonging to the rest of his dinner company lighting up and his heart softens, just a little. It’s the first time all four of them had dinner together, after all. And it’s Renjun, of all people, what could he do, say no?

“I drove you monkeys here, so I gotta drive y’all back. I’ll just watch you lot go crazy, go stupid,” Jaemin massages circles into his temples in exasperation. His mind flashes to Renjun’s tiny ssam, “also, Hyuck, I’ll take over the grill from now on. At the rate Renjun’s going, he’s just going to be eating a massive salad.”

Donghyuck has the audacity to beam at him in response. “Thanks, Jaem, you’re the best.”

Sometimes it is simply Not Worth It to be a good friend. Jaemin is pretty accustomed to drunk Jeno, but now that tipsy Donghyuck and drunk Renjun got added into the mix, Jaemin has well and truly decided that he is, in fact, far Too Sober for this.

“We need to fight them,” Jeno fake-whispers into Jaemin’s ear, raising his fists at an imaginary opponent. There is an undercurrent of determination in his statement that Jaemin doesn’t quite know where to place.

Jaemin wrinkles his nose at the smell of alcohol invading his nostrils, and leans over across the table to put Jeno’s fists down. “Who?”

“Them!”

“Donghyuck and Renjun?”

“No! They are our friends now!” As if to prove his point, Jeno flops onto Donghyuck’s side and bundles him into a sloppy hug. Donghyuck simply accepts it. Returns it, even.

“We have to unite against our true enemy,” Donghyuck announces with all the seriousness of a semi-intoxicated man.

Jaemin quirks an eyebrow in amusement. “And who is that?”

Donghyuck slams his fist on the table, and a little bit of soju sloshes out of his receptacle. “The hosts from the new show they’re doing.” This must be the information Mark told them during their interview, new information that he had to process on his own now, since Renjun was just… taking a nap on the ground beside him, the soju he’d been nursing long abandoned.

Jeno leans over to move Donghyuck’s arms away from the table, grunting some complaint about how he was being too loud. Donghyuck merely pats his head in an attempt of a placating response.

“These people we’re up against, tell me more if we have to fight them.”

“Those bastards,” Jeno chokes down a sob, “Park Jisung who studied theatre and dance in China.”

“Zhong Chenle, former child star from the same college,” Donghyuck weeps. “They’re bilingual and younger than us and –

“Perfectly better than us in every way. I don’t – don’t want to get cut,” Jeno chokes through his sobs. “We will work together from now on.”

It was a little after ten, which was a tragically early time for his friends to have gotten shit-faced but they had to work at five the next day. Jaemin watches Donghyuck and Jeno embrace each other in amusement. Donghyuck was dramatic, but the diva quality that drunk Jeno possessed? _Out of this world_.

From under the table, Renjun promptly hits his head on the table leg, and Jaemin scrambles to rub circles soothingly into the area of impact.

Okay, this was getting too much to handle. It would appear to be a good time to leave.

The good news is that Donghyuck and Jeno manage to walk themselves to Jaemin’s car, the most impressive part of it being how they managed to do so without untangling their limbs.

The bad news was that Renjun was out like a light _again_ , so it was on Jaemin to move him into his car. Jaemin feels his heart leaping, bounding, going a hundred miles an hour with Renjun on his back and it’s not from physical exertion. Renjun noses gently into his neck, and buries his face in the crook between Jaemin’s neck and shoulder; Jaemin almost passes out from the newfound warmth, and he’s thankful that Jeno and Donghyuck are too preoccupied with not tripping over each other to see him fall apart courtesy of Huang Renjun.

The car falls quiet: Jaemin thinking, trying to make sense of everything, the others drifting in and out of their soju-imbued semi-consciousness. He drops Jeno and Donghyuck off (apparently they live in the same apartment complex?), and the car stills even further, just the engine humming and Renjun’s occasional snores.

At a red light, Renjun stirs, turning his body to face Jaemin’s, his visage half-lit by the street lamps. “Thanks,” he beams.

Jaemin can’t help but suddenly sit up a little straighter, peeling his spine from the car seat. “For what?”

Renjun leans over to press a soft kiss on Jaemin’s cheek. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

The light turns green, and Jaemin has to direct his attention back to the road – by the time the car reaches the next stop light, Renjun’s fast asleep again.

For a long while, it’s just Jaemin, by himself, and the seemingly never-ending road.

Jaemin didn’t drink, but he thinks his brain is somehow smothered with some intoxicating haze. His co-worker’s hangovers steal the noise away from the set, their typical banter replaced with the sound of speed-flipping through scripts and occasional pen clicking, and maybe, he’s a little thankful for the newfound (relative) silence.

Nobody speaks of last night, and Jaemin isn’t sure if it’s because they were on a time crunch, or whatever newfound professionalism they suddenly possessed, or if the memory had already disintegrated into another realm.

Renjun is on set, waving a half-folded frog in his hand. He laughs, “it doesn’t look like much now, but we are getting there!” The camera pans to him pressing into the paper and Jaemin just watches, watches Renjun’s familiar birthmark, his fingers pointing to the lines to fold into, Renjun’s hands, Renjun’s hands, _Renjun’s hands_ – and finally! A frog. The camera pans down to their worktop, where a small family of similar-looking paper frogs in a variety of colours blinks back.

Not going to lie, this was kind of endearing for some reason. The stylists put Renjun in a pink little jacket today, the same shade as the pink in his hair, and Jaemin doesn’t know why he has to fight down his coos in order to mentally steer himself back to watching this show seriously. Whatever it means to watch a kid’s program seriously.

Renjun walks back to where Jaemin’s standing, with a twinkle in his eye.

“Show me your palms.”

Immediately, Renjun shoves his hands behind his back. “What?”

“There’s something on your palms! You wrote your lines on your palms! Again!”

“I didn’t!” Renjun takes off, hands balled into fists, making a beeline back into the waiting room.

“Prove it!” Jaemin yells, tailing behind him.

Of course, Jaemin catches him, eventually, cornering him behind their couch. Renjun’s a fighter through and through and Jaemin has half his mind set on tickling his co-worker into submission.

Except Renjun doesn’t move, merely staring up at him, almost too sweetly. “So.”

… so Jaemin didn’t think he’d get this far. What is one supposed to do anyway, when a cousin of a friend, a neighbour, a co-worker, a friend (whom he shared a very ambiguous relationship with, nonetheless) is peering up at you with a whole universe’s worth of expectation? With their face inches away?

The following events unfold in slow motion. Renjun’s stands on tiptoe, his palms burning into Jaemin’s shoulders, shifting his weight to see his face better. A beat passes. In the same way, almost like a magnet, Jaemin feels himself inexplicably pulled towards him.

The distance between them shortens, halves, diminishes to zero –

“JAEMIN!” Doyoung’s voice rings, sharp and clear, “Where are you?”

They immediately jump apart. Renjun turns around to pick up Jaemin’s costume head and stuffs it onto Jaemin’s own. Before he knew it, Jaemin feels Renjun pushing him towards the door. When he opens it, Doyoung clucks his tongue, berating him for not having put on the rest of his costume, before disappearing off again to locate a certain Lee Jeno, none the wiser about the reddening tips of his ears.

It may or may not have been a blessing that Jaemin has dinner with his mom scheduled after work. Mrs Na prods about anything and everything, including “ _the_ _nice boy who likes radish kimchi_ ” (Renjun), “ _your lovely Chinese co-host on the show_ ” (Renjun) and “ _whoever dyed your hair for you did a good job!_ ” (also Renjun), and subconsciously, a part of him wonders if there was ever going to be a day where he _could_ introduce Renjun to her properly.

But introduce him as _what_ exactly, Jaemin doesn’t know yet.

Ah, which brings him back to the problem at hand.

He’s driving. Jaemin would be lying if he said that the thought of escaping to his childhood home never crossed his mind. To spend the night tucked into his childhood bed, and head back in time where he was nothing but his mother’s son and his problems were only as wide as his little neighbourhood.

But what about the other Jaemins that followed after: the one that existed in college, the one from the broadcasting studio, the one that offered dinner to a Chinese boy who would claim his affections for his own –

When he shuts his eyes at a red light he almost imagines Renjun in the passenger seat. Jaemin’s an indecisive person, sure, but this time he doesn't have to choose; the answer had always been clear as day. There was no way he was ever going to go back to becoming a version of himself that never crossed paths with Renjun.

As Jaemin’s feet shuffle closer to his unit, he hears it, the faint strains of the record-player crooning next door. Perhaps, there could be a new other Jaemin waiting behind the door, if he mustered up the courage to knock.

Except, it is Renjun who opens. He’s freshly showered, in a tracksuit, standing in his own doorway, bespectacled. The shitty yellow hallway lighting is flickering, reflecting half-crescent moons off his lens. “Jaem, is there something –“

“I think – I might be in love with you.”

A pause. Renjun lets out a shaky exhale in response. “That’s good. I think I have been too... for a while now.”

It’s another one of those moments that Jaemin wants to hold onto for a lifetime. To have Renjun’s arms clasped around his neck, to feel the buzzing of the light fixture and the record player melt into white noise, to look into Renjun’s eyes without having to find excuses and pocket his fondness.

This setting screams of dejavu, Jaemin on the rooftop trying to come to terms with whatever he’d done for the day. Or not quite, because this time Renjun’s actually looking at him, studying him like he held the answers to the universe’s questions. The parapet that they are both perched upon is a little high, and Renjun’s feet don’t quite touch the ground, instead swinging back and forth lazily.

Jaemin would _really like_ to return the favour but his face already felt like it had been perpetually set ablaze from the warmth of Renjun’s gaze. But he’s curious about something, so he decides to muster up his courage once more. “When did you realise?”

“After the first time we met, I didn’t know what it was but I knew that I wanted to see you again. So when you invited me over the first time I had to take the chance.”

Jaemin’s expression is one of amusement. “By coming over every day thereafter and wiping out my refrigerator?”

“You were running around my mind all day, Jaem,” Renjun replies softly. He cups the sides of Jaemin’s face. “Weren’t you tired?” He places a peck on Jaemin’s cheek. Jaemin, struck by the ludicrosity of the pick up line and the fleeting moment of tenderness that occurred shortly after, _honest to god_ starts giggling like a schoolgirl. Renjun just continues, satisfied by the response elicited, “You took my mind off a lot of things. For once, whenever I went to sleep I stopped missing home. I was unintentionally dropping you in all my conversations with my friends. The night we had hotpot together, Sicheng –”

“I know.”

This was the first time Jaemin has seen a moment of weakness in his demeanour. “...you know?” Renjun falters, “that’s… embarrassing…”

It fires up some newfound confidence in Jaemin. Jaemin shifts to turn towards Renjun and ignores the quivering in his hands to brush the bangs away from his face. “That was the day for me.” His lips hover over Renjun’s forehead, and presses a long-drawn kiss into the exposed skin. “For the record,” Jaemin murmurs, “I think you’re very good looking too,” with his best Chinese pronunciation.

Renjun places a hand on his chest and pushes him away playfully. “You didn’t tell me that you knew Chinese!”

Jaemin pouts at the momentary loss of warmth. “You didn’t tell me you loved me though?”

“We have all the time in the world to tell each other things now,” Renjun smiles. “You know my favourite Teresa Teng song?”

Of course. How could Jaemin forget? “The Moon Represents My Heart?”

“Look up,” Renjun motions towards the night sky spread above him, and Jaemin follows. “It’s a full moon tonight.”

In Chinese, Renjun declares, “I love you,” with finality and Jaemin heart leaps, skips, somersaults. Some ridiculous impulse wrecks havoc on Jaemin’s thought processes once again and he pulls Renjun closer, impossibly close and closes the distance once more.

Jaemin drops by Renjun’s unit to pick him up for work, and the morning gets kicked off with a giddying start when Renjun greets him with another cheek kiss. Renjun slips his hand into Jaemin’s, pleased. “I like being able to do this now.”

“Mmhm, it’s nice,” Jaemin circles the back of Renjun’s hand with his thumb.

The drive to the studio feels like everything is changed and unchanged at the same time. It's familiar and new in the same breath, Jaemin in the driver’s seat, Renjun in shotgun; Renjun talks and flirts shamelessly still, but this time Jaemin is finally smart enough to register that Renjun’s been flirting the entire time.

They eventually reach their waiting room, before Renjun slightly tugs on his arm to pull him back. “How are we telling our co-workers?”

Jaemin doesn’t reply, just throws open the door with a mischievous grin, and is met with two pairs of eyes. Inside, Jeno and Donghyuck were on the couch, looking dazedly in his direction.

“Good morning, my dear friends! I, Na Jaemin, am dating Huang Renjun!” For Dramatic Effect, he turns to face Renjun, grabbing his face in his hands and kisses him, square on the lips.

“So you finally got the balls to do it, huh?” Jeno scoffs, unimpressed.

Donghyuck looks almost bored. “We saw the tragedy that unfolded last time you tried to do that, Na.”

“How?” Renjun asks, bewildered. “There was nobody to see it? The room was empty?”

“That’s what you thought! But alas!” Donghyuck spins around to point to the broom closet. “We were watching from there!” 

“But why were both of you in there _together_?” Jaemin squints at his friends, all messy hair and crumpled shirts, trying to make sense of the situation. The broom closet is small, cramped, and having two people inside it at the same time would be a tight fit.

“Why is Jeno blushing? He’s practically re– _oh my god!_ ” Renjun screeches as the realisation dawns on him, releasing his grip on Jaemin’s hand. “This sacred premise, _how dare you_ defile it!” Donghyuck just laughs, bouncing up from his position on the couch, pushing past Jaemin to dart out of the room, with Renjun in close pursuit behind.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to [jess](https://twitter.com/sunglovbot) for being my beta and reading all my self-indulgent ideas
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/_hwangtwt) | [cc](https://curiouscat.me/_hwangtwt)


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